Funny Cartoon Inking - A Look at Various Styles

"...do you think this has applications to funny comics? I've noticed all my favorite funny comics generally use really flat compositions and mostly just trace simplified cartoon characters (with sparing shadows). I dunno, I love Wally Wood's artwork, but I'm not sure it makes me laugh out loud like Don Martin or Kliban. Just like to hear your thoughts as this pertains to COMEDIC applications. And everyone else's opinions too!"

Hey Chris...that's a really great question! I had to think about it for a while, so here's my take:

Michael Cho's examples range from the flattest , clear-line extreme on one end to the most high-contrast extreme on the inky side. I would agree that in funny comics, there's not much use for the heavy black Charles Burns/David Mazzucchelli/Mark Zingarelli type inking, but SOME funny artists have a pretty bold thick-and-thin chiaroscuro ink line:

I wouldn't look at this stuff as "rules," but rather just more valuable tools that are available to use if you're aware of them. Thoughtful choices are what it's all about. I frequently say that as long as you have a reason for doing something in a drawing, it's probably a good choice.

12 comments:

Really interesting breakdown, Sherm. I think you can read a certain degree of visual quality in how someone inks...but "funny" comes from the drawing itself, the pacing, and the writing. Michael Cho uses his blacks to get at a certain realism, and he uses light and shadow to establish mood.

I've always thought of line as the framework of my drawing, and I use color to punch up the emotion or mood I want to create. To help things pop or recede, too.

Of course, line can have a ton of personality on its own. But if you just work in black and white--its useful to know how to block in your blacks. Cartoonists don't use enough black as a whole, I think.

Bob -- I think you're right on when you said, "but 'funny' comes from the drawing itself, the pacing, and the writing." when you talked about helping things pop, it made me think about the comics by Franquin that I'm reading now.

Larry --glad you liked it!

Hey Chris, thanks!

Hi Denise -- I never really thought about all that variety in inking styles until Chris Allison brought it up in his question.one more reason comments are really helpful!

"The heavy black stroke on cartoon characters' knees and elbows often describes coiled-up action rather than anything literal."

I've seen that before worded a little differently, I'm tempted to blame Vincent Waller since I vaguely recall it having some connection to Spongebob, but it may also have been you. It's such a strange statement...

And I do mean. I am calling shenanigans unless you can show a few examples (even one would be surprising, but not evidence of any meaningful trend). I've not seen one, and I've been looking for awhile (across a broad selection of classic cartoons & comics).

Far as I can tell, putting heavy linework anywhere that doesn't correspond to light and volume (especially on a cartoon style character) is a bad, downright non-functional idea. But I'm game to be proven wrong.

Hi Crimson...I see there were some broken links in this post, so now that I've fixed them I can send you to some good examples. In the Foxy Fagan comic referred to above, you can see that the ink line on Foxy's knees and butt get thicker as they round the curve of the knee and butt -- but there's no relation to light or shadow. See http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/foxyfagan06-big.jpg and then look really closely at all the ink lines throughout that story at . Eisenberg doesn't use the technique in every panel, but he uses it a lot. Also see the cartoon inking of Carl Barks, Harvey Kurtzman at http://www.animationarchive.org/2007/07/comics-kurtzmans-comic-books.html, Floyd Gottfredson and especially Dan Gordon at http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2007/09/cookie-comics-first-issue-by-dan-gordon.html

I'm still not seeing it, though. The contours you point to in Foxy Fagan here I read as a matter of conveying volume -- simply assuming overhead lighting, heavier line weights are used at the bottom of forms. Otherwise his face and ears are also coiled with potential.

Kurtzman's Potshot Pete appears to have fairly uniform contour lines throughout, though much heavier (possibly inked with a very large round brush). In a few places there's the same sort of 'heavy side down' simplified lighting cue (though Kurtzman here is using a lot heavier shading, with more definite shadows). Other than that, variance in contour line weight seems to reflect only the natural widening and tapering of a quick brush stroke. Awesome action lines on the figures throughout, but nothing I can spot as line weight used to signify compression... Again, variance that may fit that notion don't explain the same variance used elsewhere, as on a motorcycle handlebar.

And with Dan Gordon it's the same (LOVE Dan Gordon!). Most of the notably heavy contour lines fall along the bottom of the volume. You even remarked on how heavy that came out with the bearded old man.

In http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z40/ramblindawg/Cookie%20Comics/Cookie%2001/Cookie01%20DETAILS/CK01D_7.jpg there's a slightly heavy line on the girl's rump that might apply to this theory... but that's a stretch.

You may be onto something with Carl Barks. I'm looking at some samples from my own collection and he doesn't do volume signifying heavy lines the way these others do, nor does he use heavier contour lines. His line weights seem to have no rhyme or reason at all... but there are some heavy lines along the curves of duck knees and feet.

Going through more Barks I see some variation over the years. It doesn't look like he liked to vary his line weight much within a figure but does a lot of 'broken line' effects with lines tapering to nothing at either end.

I see a few cases where he did use the heavy line at the bottom trick -- seems mostly reserved for cover pinups. Guessing he wanted the characters to feel weightier for the covers, but light on the page. Just guessing. Might just be that those covers weren't inked by Barks.

Where I do see significant use of line weight is variance between foreground, midground, and background subjects.